


Ghosts of Christmas Present

by patchworkofstars



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, brief mention of historical homophobia, death mentions, everyone's dead except Virgil, graveyard, it's fluffier than it sounds i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:31:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchworkofstars/pseuds/patchworkofstars
Summary: The festive season can be lonely when you have no one to celebrate with, but when an impromptu walk takes Virgil to a graveyard, he meets three new friends who might just be the best of his life. Even if they’re not actually alive...





	Ghosts of Christmas Present

**Author's Note:**

> This was my fic for the winter Sanders Sides Bang, and @phangirlandkilljoy on tumblr [made art for it here](https://phangirlandkilljoy.tumblr.com/post/182722527693/hello-this-is-my-art-for-the-sanders-sides-bang).

December 23rd. Virgil turned away from the calendar and sighed as he gazed around his one-room apartment. Thin strands of tinsel hung limply from the picture rails, shedding glitter they could ill-afford to lose, and an undecorated six-inch tall Christmas tree sat alone on the table, looking all the smaller for the empty space surrounding it.

On the window sill sat three small cards, sent by family members he only ever heard from at this time of year. Somehow that reminder that he was the outcast, the one they barely remembered existed, was even more painful than receiving nothing at all, just as the sparse and dismal decorations highlighted the absence of festive cheer.

He shuddered, the physical jolt snapping him out of his gloomy daze as a wave of desperation swept over him, a need to get out of there and escape to somewhere untouched by the sprawling leviathan of the holiday.

Fumbling a little in his haste, he pulled on his combat boots and laced them up, then shrugged into his long black winter coat. Festive it may not be, but the sombre aesthetic matched his mood perfectly.

The grey door slammed shut too hard behind him, as though the apartment itself were ejecting him, rejecting his claim to have a place within its walls. He shivered, pulling up the hood of his coat and hunkering down into its comforting warmth as he stepped out into a grey hallway, descended a flight of grey stairs, and stepped out under a sky that was… 

...Bright blue, apparently.

Well, it would take more than a bit of sunshine to brighten the dark pit of sadness in his heart. He squinted against the glare, pulling his coat around him like a shield.

Now that he was outside, it occurred to him that he didn’t have a clue where to go. The shops would be crowded with people, and bright lights and decorations were the last things he wanted to see. 

Instead, he turned towards the residential streets, trying to fix his gaze straight ahead as he passed house after house adorned with strings of lights, wreaths, and in one case even a six-foot inflatable Santa. Each lit window offered a glimpse into images of domestic holiday bliss. Tall trees, laden with baubles and other ornaments; walls festooned with thick, glittering, multi-coloured tinsel; families, talking, laughing, and playing games together.

Virgil sank deeper into his coat despite the unseasonal warmth of the day, keeping his head down and his eyes fixed on the ground before him, quickening his pace in his desperation to escape. Step after step, moving faster and faster, as though he could somehow outrun his own loneliness.

His head began to ache from the tension as he unconsciously gritted his teeth against the tide of painful memories threatening to engulf him. Thinking about the past wouldn’t change anything, it was dead and gone. Too bad the present wasn’t much better.

Turning into Church Street, he squinted against the sudden glare of the shallow afternoon sun, shining too brightly for his throbbing head yet too low to shield his eyes against. In desperation, he took a sharp left turn through an open gateway onto a footpath leading away from the road. He paid no heed to where it lead, until the looming wall of a building sheltered him and he looked around to find himself in the local churchyard, surrounded on either side by gravestones dotted like islands in a sea of roughly-cropped grass. 

Well, a graveyard suited his mood. His self-esteem was already six feet under.

The low sun cast an almost ethereal glow across the churchyard, softening the view of weathered headstones and carved memorials. Virgil breathed in the silence, letting his mind adjust to this new, less overwhelming atmosphere.

For want of anything better to do, he decided to take a walk around. No one else was there to bother him, and there was an air of such peace that his tension began to melt away. His shoulders lowered from their position close to his ears, and his spine unfurled to nearer its proper length. 

Absent-mindedly he let his eyes roam over the graves, taking in the variety of different styles: Simple headstones with nothing but writing. More complex ones with carved decoration of flowers, crosses, or even angels. Towering memorials with full statuary, or chest tombs raised box-like above the ground. Even among the majority of plainer ones, there were a multitude of different ages and types of stone on display. 

His left hand began to ache as if longing to reach out and touch the old headstones, but he resisted. Some voice at the back of his mind reprimanded him for even considering it. To touch a headstone, it scolded, would be like touching the stranger buried there: inappropriate somehow, an invasion of their personal space for all they’d been dead for decades.

So instead, he walked carefully between the graves, treading warily around the bare patches of ground where no markers remained but the unevenness still suggested someone had long ago been laid to rest there.

But the ache in his hand grew stronger, more insistent, his right hand joining in with the nagging urge to reach out. Some force seemed to draw them almost magnetically towards the stones until, at last, he gave in and reached out to brush his fingers lightly against a worn headstone.

He had expected it to feel cold, rough, clammy somehow, but instead it just felt ordinary. Carved smooth, and holding a lingering hint of warmth from the day’s sunshine. He let his fingers rest gently against it, and then, on a whim, he crouched down to read the name on the front.

_Logan Crofter_

An ordinary sort of name, it told him nothing at all about who this person had been. Probably a man, with a decent but unexceptional lifespan if the carved dates were correct. But this had been a human being, with hopes and dreams, favourite foods and a particular way of speaking. A whole life, now reduced to a few words on a slab.

He moved on to crouch beside the next marker. This one was far more worn, clearly older as well as having been carved of less weather-resistant stone. Even so, when he looked closely, he could still read the name recorded there. 

“Patton Hart”, he murmured aloud. “Sounds nice.”

He sat back on his heels, a wistful smile ghosting his lips despite his melancholy. There was something unexpectedly relaxing about spending time with the dead. They didn’t judge, didn’t criticise or nag him, didn’t pester him for attention or walk away when he was speaking. Perhaps he would stay a while longer with them, since they were such peaceful company.

"Mr Hart, Mr Crofter, d'you mind if I sit down here for a minute?" he asked.

He waited for a moment, expecting nothing yet nevertheless feeling he should give time for an answer. The air was still but for the barest whisper of a breeze, like a gentle sigh, not enough even to move the few leaves still clinging valiantly to the birch tree. A blackbird chirped at him from a nearby patch of brambles, then was gone in a flutter of rapid wings.

Silence. With a shrug, he sat down on the short, soft grass between the graves, carefully avoiding contact with either. After all, lightly touching a stranger's shoulder was one thing, but to accidentally sit in their lap would just be awkward.

He was tired, beyond tired, with a weariness that had seeped so gradually into his bones that he hadn’t until that moment been aware of it. But now, sitting on the soft grass in a place of utmost peace, all the exhaustion he had suppressed for so long seemed suddenly to fill him.

He patted the grass around himself and came to a decision, shifting to lie down on his back and look up at the sky. The ground was cold but dry, and the grass cushioned his back against its unevenness. With the thick wool of his black coat beneath him, he was surprisingly comfortable.

He watched the clouds drift slowly by, forming, disintegrating, then forming anew at a pace so different from that of the busy world beneath them. Closing his eyes, he let his breathing slow to that same unhurried rhythm, listening with half an ear to the chirrups of sparrows going about their business in the more neglected, overgrown corners of the churchyard.

A slight breeze brushed over him, and he turned his attention to the sensation, his focus shifting from hearing to touch, then on to smell as the air stilled once more and he took in the scent of the grass beneath and all around him.

One by one, he let his muscles relax as his pulse slowed to a resting pace. Then, feeling finally completely calm, he let his eyes slowly open once more.

For a moment he stopped breathing, his heart rate spiking and his mind racing as it tried to comprehend what his eyes were telling it. Standing over him was a man, wearing a polo shirt and thick-framed glasses and gazing down at him with concern. Virgil could clearly see the way his forehead creased between his eyebrows, could have counted each stripe of his necktie if he’d felt so inclined.

And yet… Unfortunately for his rational mind, he could also see _through_ him, up to where clouds were still passing by unconcerned against the blue of the sky.

Virgil tried blinking and rubbing his eyes, but to no avail, the man remained there watching him, his frown deepening as he observed the reaction. Virgil stared back, his fight or flight instincts trying to calculate the quickest escape route. But the roll-scramble-dash plan was stripped from his mind as a second figure joined the first and his head filled with nothing but static. 

*****

When he came to, he found the two figures crouched next to him, one on each of the graves plots to either side. They both looked worried for him, and the second one kept moving as though to touch him reassuringly, then pulling back with sadness in his pale eyes.

Virgil sat up abruptly, still ready to flee but less panicked knowing the strangers weren’t about to touch him. Carefully he looked both figures up and down, taking in the second one’s casual clothing and the cardigan tied around his shoulders, as well as his semi-transparency. The two watched him in silence, waiting patiently for his next move.

“You’re ghosts”, he stated at last. It wasn’t a question; no special effects could be that good with no technical equipment around.

“An astute observation”, the more smartly-dressed spectre commented. “And it appears that you can see us. This is highly unusual.”

“Sorry for disturbing your nap", the second one added, "But we don't get many visitors these days, and no one has ever laid down between our resting places before!" 

“Huh. So I guess you’re Mr Hart?” Virgil asked. The spectre nodded, and he turned to the figure with the necktie. “And you must be Mr Crofter?”

“It’s _Professor_ Crofter, actually”, the ghost corrected. “Although under the circumstances, I believe simply ‘Logan’ will suffice.”

“Logan”, repeated Virgil, testing the name aloud now that he had a face to fit it to. It had a solid, grounded ring to it that seemed a perfect fit for the serious man. He nodded. “Thanks, Logan, I’m Virgil. Pleased to meet you.”

“Having a party without me?” a voice cut in, and Virgil turned sharply to see the spectre of a young man, dressed in centuries-old fashion and leaning jauntily against a raised chest tomb nearby.

“Uh… Thomas Sanders?” he asked, hesitating for a moment before remembering the name he’d read there.

The ghost scoffed. “ _Hardly_. Do I _look_ like a Thomas? No, Mr Sanders’ tomb just happens to have been placed over the spot where I myself was buried several centuries earlier. A perfectly likeable chap, but _I_ was most certainly here _first_.”

“Now, Roman, be nice!” Patton reprimanded him in a stage whisper. “You wouldn’t want to give young Virgil here the wrong impression, would you?”

For a split second, the new ghost's face contorted in alarm, but he quickly schooled it into a charming smile. 

“Greetings, young man, you have the honour of addressing Prince Roman! Delighted to meet you.”

He held out his hand as though to be kissed, then quickly withdrew it when Virgil merely stared in confusion.

Logan cleared his throat. “He’s not actually a prince”, he noted.

Roman straightened up and glared at him. “Well, I _should_ have been!” he declared passionately, “And I _would_ have been if only my father had seen fit to marry my mother! A trivial technicality which society nevertheless deems sufficient to deprive me of my birthright!”

Logan rolled his eyes, while Patton carefully avoided the knight’s wild gesticulating to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Never mind, Roman”, he murmured sympathetically, “You’re still a brave and noble knight, and you’ll always be a prince to me.”

Logan sighed and turned away from the pair, beckoning Virgil to move a little further away. “Roman is… a character”, he confided, keeping his voice low. “He’s not a bad person, and I greatly appreciate Patton’s efforts in teaching him modern English, but being a rational man some of his attitudes and theatrics try my patience. I’ve done my best to educate him in scientific developments through time, particularly in my own field of astronomy, but he has proved a singularly reluctant student.”

Virgil frowned. “Speaking of which, aren’t you kind of young to have been a professor?” he commented, then mentally scolded himself, afraid Logan would take it as an insult.

On the contrary, however, Logan smiled in a way that was almost smug. “I appear as I did when I first gained my professorship”, he explained, “And while you would generally be correct in your assessment, it so happens that I was the youngest professor my university had ever appointed.

“Huh, so you get to choose, then?” Virgil asked, curious. “You’re not stuck looking the age you did when you died?”

“Not at all!” Patton told him, smiling broadly as he joined them once more. “I may not look it, but I was 104 when I died! I go with this look because it’s the age I was when my first grandchild was born. That was the crowning moment of my life, just like Logan’s professorship was for him.”

“That's actually pretty cool", remarked Virgil. "How about you, Sir Roman? What made you pick that age to appear as?" 

Roman scowled, but it seemed to be directed at the world in general rather than at Virgil. “This _is_ the age _I_ died at”, he complained. “Struck down in my _prime_ by cruellest fate!”

He pressed a hand to his chest and threw back his head in an exaggerated tableau of tragedy. 

“So, did you die in battle, or what?” Virgil asked.

The knight gasped as though pained by the question, and turned back to Patton, who put an arm around him and patted him gently on the back, murmuring soothingly.

Logan sighed and leaned closer to Virgil. “He took an arrow to the knee and died from the resulting infection”, he whispered. “It’s yet another thing he’s still bitter about. All that lingering resentment is the reason he’s never moved on.”

“Huh, I see." Virgil pondered those words for a moment before an obvious question presented itself. "So… How come _you’re_ still here?” he asked. “You had a decent life, right?”

Logan sighed with unexpected wistfulness, catching Patton and Roman’s attention. As they moved closer to listen, he began to explain.

"It's true that I had a good life. I was highly successful in my field of research and earned the respect and admiration of my peers. However..." He sighed again. "My greatest dream remained frustratingly beyond my reach." 

“So what was your dream, then?”

Logan looked up at the sky, his face relaxing into a distant, melancholy smile. “For almost my whole life I dreamed of discovering a planet – or more than one – beyond our solar system. Of proving beyond all possible doubt that there are other worlds out there, however strange and uninhabitable they might seem. That was the dream that kept me working long after others had gone home each day, the spark that ignited my passion for research. It drove me to discover new stars, new galaxies, yet somehow that single goal always eluded me.” He shook his head, sadly. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t let myself die until I had succeeded. But willpower alone proved insufficient to conquer death.”

“Oh, that’s rough, I’m sorry”, mumbled Virgil, and Patton attempted to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder. It passed through him like smoke, without so much as a tingle.

“We’re all here because we have some kind of lingering regret”, the man explained, giving up on the attempt. “In my case, I stayed because I couldn’t bear to leave my family behind. But… They’ve all moved away since I died, and they haven’t visited in years.”

“Didn’t you have, like, a wife?” Virgil asked. “Wouldn’t she be dead by now? It’s been decades. How come you haven’t moved on to be with her?”

Patton looked away, his form fading slightly, its glow diminishing as though whatever spark remained within him dimmed at the memory.

“We weren’t close”, he said quietly. “We were friends when we were young, but… We lead separate lives, especially after the children left home. I had always… preferred men, and we just drifted apart.”

“Wait, you mean you’re gay?” Virgil asked. “Same! But in that case, why did you even marry her?”

“Things weren’t always how they are now, kiddo”, Patton told him sadly.

“Patton died in 1984 at the age of 104”, Logan pointed out gently. “A simple calculation will tell you he was born in 1880, at which time male homosexual relationships remained very much illegal. Which is not to say they didn’t occur, of course, but society gave little choice but to follow its dictates or face the worse it had to offer.”

Patton nodded. “It was illegal for most of my life, so I did what was expected of me. I got married at twenty to a nice girl I’d grown up with, started a family, and got myself a respectable job making furniture.”

“Oh”, mumbled Virgil, feeling suddenly guilty for having brought it up.

“I had a happy life, mostly!” Patton assured him. “I wanted a family more than anything, and every single one of my children and grandchildren meant the whole world to me!”

He smiled, but Virgil couldn’t help noticing the hint of melancholy still in his eyes. Perhaps he still regretted not having been able to experience both romance _and_ a family, or maybe it was just that he hadn’t seen his family in so long, and he missed them all so much. Either way, Virgil was overwhelmed by a powerful desire to do _something_ to help ease his sadness.

“I could look them up when I get home”, he suggested. “They’re probably on social media of one sort or another. If you give me some names, I’ll do my best to track them down and see how they’re doing.”

Patton’s eyes widened behind his round glasses. “You can do that?” he asked, and Virgil fleetingly wondered how a ghost could sound breathless with excitement. “You would do that for _me_?!”

“Sure!” Virgil told him. “I mean, no promises or anything, but I’ll try my best to find them.”

A breeze laced with December ice swept by, and he shivered involuntarily. The sky was noticeably more cloudy now, and in a little over an hour the sun would begin to set. Logan noticed his glance to the west and raised a hand to silence the others' chatter. 

“You should leave soon”, he suggested with uncharacteristic gentleness. “You’re alive, unlike us, with a living body to take care of.”

“He can’t leave _yet!_ ” Roman exclaimed. “He barely arrived, what… How long ago was it, Patton?”

The older man tried to force back up the smile that had faded at Logan's words, but it fell away again immediately. "I don't know, Roman", he replied sadly, "But I think Logan's right. Virgil has a life, and he needs to live it, not just hang around here with us oldies.”

Virgil buttoned his coat and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to fend off the gathering chill. “I’ll come back”, he told them. “Very soon, so wait for me?”

“There’s not much else we _can_ do”, Roman pointed out. “We’re stuck here, perhaps forever, doomed to watched the world move on without us as we- Mmph!” he finished indignantly as Logan clamped a hand over his mouth.

“We would be delighted to see you return”, the scientist assured Virgil. “However, I want you to remember to always put your life and your living friends first.”

Virgil nodded his assent, resisting the urge to ask “What living friends?” as he turned to face Patton. The grandfather looked back at him sadly, his faded eyes filled with the memories of too many goodbyes, too many loved ones lost forever.

“I _will_ come back, I promise”, Virgil told him firmly. “Trust me, please?”

Patton nodded, lifting his arms to hug himself as a substitute. Virgil turned away, biting his lip and blinking away the tears pricking at his eyes.

_Don’t be so over-emotional_ , he mentally scolded himself as he walked along the path to the gateway through which he had entered not so very long ago. _You just met them, and you can see them again whenever you want to._

_Can you?_ a treacherous shadow whispered in his mind. _Maybe they were wrong about being able to see them any time. Or maybe you fell asleep on the grass and imagined the whole thing…_

He couldn’t help but turn around and look back towards where he had left his friends behind. But he had already stepped beyond the gate, out of their realm, and the high stone wall of the churchyard blocked his view.

For a moment he paused, uncertainty wavering his conviction. Then a decision was reached, a path chosen, and he continued on his way home.

*****

“Do you think he’ll ever come back?” Patton asked softly, his eyes still fixed on the gateway through which Virgil had disappeared.

“Of _course_ he will!” Roman scoffed. “No one would turn down the chance to see _me_ again! And he seemed to like meeting both of you, too.”

Logan was silent for a long moment, contemplating how best to balance cold reasoning with reassurance. “I believe there is a high probability he will return”, he said at last. “Roman is, for once, correct in his assessment that Virgil enjoyed our company. Of course, we can never fully anticipate how the living will choose to spend their time, but… I believe he fully intends to keep his promise.”

He paused for a moment, then added, “And besides, he’ll probably end up here in time anyway. It’s merely a question of how long we have to wait.”

“You just couldn’t leave it on a happy note, could you?!” Roman exploded. “Look what you’ve done now, you’ve gone and upset Patton just when he was feeling better about things!”

“I don't want him to diiiieee!" Patton wailed, his ghostly form vibrating with distress. "He's such a good kid, I want him to live a long and happy life like mine! _Better_ than mine!”

“This is ridiculous, you’re both completely overreacting.”

“You’re the one who couldn’t resist ruining the mood!”

“All I did was articulate the perfectly reasonable conclusion that-”

“Please, padre, stop sobbing! Logan was just being stupidly negative as usual.”

“I was _not!_ ”

“Uh, guys?” a confused voice broke through their arguing.

Logan and Roman both turned abruptly in surprise, and Patton’s face lit up with a joyful smile at the sight of the black-clad figure once more in their midst. Virgil rubbed the back of his head nervously, turning faintly pink at having three pairs of ghostly eyes staring at him.

For a second there was silence, and then:

“You see! I _told_ you he’d come back!” Roman cried triumphantly.

“I never said he wouldn’t”, Logan bit back impatiently. “All I said was that it might not be for a while.”

“My grasp of time might not be the clearest after all these centuries, but even _I_ can tell he’s only been gone a few minutes!”

Logan frowned and turned back to Virgil. “Loath as I am to admit it, Roman is correct on that point”, he said. “May I ask the reason for this swift return?”

Virgil shrugged. “Well, I only live a few minutes away”, he explained, “I just never thought of visiting this place before today. So I just put on an extra sweater, and, uh...” - He held up a large bag - “I fetched some things. I dunno if ghosts celebrate the holidays at all, but I thought I’d bring some gifts. And then, of course, I realised you wouldn’t be able to touch them, but I figured maybe we could still look at them together?”

“That’s so thoughtful!” Patton squealed, trying and failing to wrap his arms around the young man. “I knew you were a good kid. Didn’t I say he was a good kid?” He looked around at the others for confirmation, his pale eyes shining as he positioned one ghostly arm approximately around Virgil’s shoulders. And perhaps it was an illusion, but, insubstantial as Patton’s form was, Virgil was almost sure he could feel it.

“We might not have much time today”, he cautioned them all, “But I’ll come back tomorrow, okay? And the next day, too, because you better believe I’m not gonna sit at home alone on Christmas Day when I can spend it with you guys instead.”

He put the bag down and opened it, then pulled it away with a snort when Roman and Patton each leaned forward to try to peek inside.

“Nope, Logan first, since you two are so impatient”, he teased. “Logan, I don’t have any books on astronomy right now, but I’ve got this science encyclopedia that’s only a few years old, and it’ll probably have some new discoveries and stuff we can read about? I mean, I can just turn the pages and let you read it if you prefer, but I haven’t actually read much of it, and it’d be cool to learn some new things, so...”

“I would be _delighted_ to read it with you”, Logan assured him, his voice measured but his eyes shining. “And if you wish for a broader understanding of any of the longer-established topics, I am well-versed in most major branches of science and would be more than willing to aid in furthering your education.”

“Uh, sure”, said Virgil, “We’ll see how it goes.” He turned to the next ghost. “Now, Patton… Like I said, looking up your family will take a while, and I can’t promise I’ll find much, so...” He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, as with his other hand he held out a photo album. “I brought this. It’s got a load of old photos of me as a kid, and I thought maybe we could look through it together? And I could tell you about them?” He dropped his gaze, his confidence in the gift wavering.

After a moment of tension, the silence slowly filled with a growing whine, increasing in pitch and volume until Virgil looked back up in alarm. Patton's eyes were wide and flooding with joyful tears, and although his hands were clasped tightly to his mouth, they couldn't contain the sound of sheer delight escaping him. 

Virgil relaxed, a relieved chuckle escaping him as he breathed once more. "I didn't have the greatest childhood", he warned, "So there's some stuff I might not wanna talk about much, but it'll be good to look back at the good times for a change." 

Patton nodded frantically in agreement, and Virgil turned at last to the final member of the group.

“Roman..." The knight leaned forward eagerly, trying to see into the bag as Virgil reached into it again. Virgil hunched deeper into his coat under the scrutiny. "I, uh, wasn't sure you'd be in the history books", he confessed, "Or at least, not more than a passing mention, so..." He pulled out a notebook, the deep red cover embossed with gold. "I bought this ages ago and then never actually used it for anything, but I thought maybe you could tell me your story? Like, all about yourself and what happened in your life." 

The ghost's mouth fell open in shock before the corners expanded upwards into a delighted grin. "You want me to talk about myself?" he asked eagerly. "You want _me_ to _talk_ about _myself?!_ ”

“Uh, yeah, that’s the idea. I’m guessing I’ll take a while, so we’ll have to leave it till tomorrow to start, but I wanted to tell you now so you wouldn’t feel left out.”

“Of course!” the knight exclaimed. “I shall contain my reminiscences until time allows me to share them unabridged!”

Virgil hid a lopsided grin, bending his head to pull the final item from the bag: a blanket. “Where would be best to sit?” he asked nervously. “I don’t wanna bother anyone by sitting on their grave.”

“Oh, never mind all that!” Roman told him, dismissing the very concept with a wave of his hand. “We can just perch on Thomas’ tomb, here. I do it all the time!”

“He doesn’t mind?”

“ _Hardly!_ ” said Roman with a grin, seating himself on the raised stone. “He was only a ghost for a few days before he moved on. No regrets, you see, so he won’t mind at all!”

Virgil spread the blanket across the middle of the tomb, then cautiously sat down on it beside Roman. As Logan and Patton took up position on his other side, he opened the encyclopedia to the first page. 

They would have looked a strange group to any observer who could have seen them, but Virgil didn’t care. With his three new friends around him, for the first time in too many years he felt happy, and cared for, and hopeful for the future.


End file.
